Thursday, February 17, 2011

What started as peaceful demonstration in Iran on Monday turned out to be bloody as the number of protesters calling for better economic opportunities and political reforms ballooned to tens of thousands in central Tehran, and in the cities of Isfahan, Mashad and Tabriz that left two people dead and dozens wounded including nine security forces, according to XinhuaNet.

The Mehr News Agency said that senior legislator, Kazeem Jalali of Iran's national security and foreign policy confirmed the two casualties from Monday's protests.

Jalali further said that "the investigations show that the shootings were done by the outlawed elements."

According to deputy police chief Ahmad Reza Radan, the first fatality was a bystander and student of Art University who was gunned down by Monafeqin (hyprocrites) on Monday.

Using electric prods and tear gas to control the crowd in the country's largest anti-regime show of unrest in about a year, the demonstrators shouted "Mubarak! Ben Ali! It's now the turn for Seyed Ali!" referring to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khāmene’i to step down.

Monday's rallies happened during the state visit of Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

Not mentioning Iran, Pres. Gul said in a news conference, "We see that sometimes when the leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the nations' demands, the people themselves take action."

In the mean time, the US criticized the handling of the protests in the country when Secretary Hillary Clinton said that while Tehran hailed the uprising in Egypt, it now shows the hypocrisy when given the chance for their people to fight for their rights.

Clinton said, "We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seize in the last week."

For the first time, the US began sending Twitter messages in Farsi--an Iranian language--in support of the protests.

The online activist group called Anonymous, hacked a number of Iranian government and news broadcasting sites that prevented them to display their Web page.